


Days and Nights on the Eclector

by easternCriminal



Series: Cuprite [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Gen, collection, father son ralationship, kind of drabbley stuff, kinda but no one shots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7688110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easternCriminal/pseuds/easternCriminal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'One could easily argue that the Eclector was no place for a kid. That didn’t stop from being a child’s home… multiple times over. Peter Quill was no different…'</p><p>A series of drabbles and one-shots based on head canon's of mine on what life was like on the Eclector for Peter Quill. Loosely part of Cuprite, but only in the absolute loosest way</p><p>Chapter 1: Musings on the New Recruit - thoughts on a child Peter Quill when he's still new<br/>Chapter 2: Moss - there's moss everywhere on the Eclector, only one man knows why<br/>Chapter 3: Hibernation - one of the worst things to happen on the ship is the heater breaking</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Musings on the New Recruit

**Author's Note:**

> this story is essentially just something for me to write in my spare time shoving my head canon's somewhere so that I can keep track of them. I hope you enjoy!

One could easily argue that the Eclector was no place for a kid. That didn’t stop from being a child’s home… multiple times over. Peter Quill was no different… except in a way he was. Each child that somehow ended up calling the Eclector home had their own tale, and accustomed in different ways to their surroundings. Peter, for instance, took the threats to eat him to heart and ended up spending about five hours somewhere in the vents. Yondu couldn’t help but to roll his eyes. 

Threatening to eat a new recruit was commonplace. Heck, ages ago Yondu himself had been in the same position - having people sniff uncomfortably at him, comment how appetizing he looks with his blue skin and all, and ponder aloud what his fin would taste in a stew (it was a  _ crest _ not a fin, something he had been very offended by at the time, back when he was a rough teen). 

Unlike any of the other children, Peter was not used to ‘aliens’, from his rock in space that had failed every attempt to make out contact, which hadn’t even managed to reach beyond a few neighboring planets, and upon catching a glimpse at any of the crew member had shrunk in on himself. Which was how Yondu found himself crouched in front of a ventilation grate, pondering whether flushing the boy out would be worth having to repair the vents afterwards, and whether or not fixing the boy up to the task was a balanced enough punishment. 

They were lucky that they had managed to get a universal translator on the kid before he had scampered off, otherwise it would make all of this a heck of alot harder.

“Look kid,” He called, and could hear his voice bouncing around the vents. “...I ain’t gonna be lettin’ any of my crew eat you… unless ya do something to deserve it.” Silence. Yondu let out a sigh. “Okay,  _ even  _ if you do something to deserve it. Point is don’t be going around doing stupid things and I’ll make sure you don’t end up on a dinner plate.” More silence. 

“...promise?” The small voice wavered slightly, and Yondu rolled his eyes. 

“Ravager’s word, now get out of there so we can get ya to your new bunk.” 

oOo

Peter’s shoved in quarters where most of the mechanics sleep along with a good portion of the younger recruit. Most of them are still scared out of their little brains and aren’t likely to try and cut off appendages from the boy in the middle of the night, and the mechanics are usually a little less rough around the edges, especially with new recruits who can help out with their work. 

This all comes around to the point that the boy was in good hands. One of the more respected mechanics - T’ir - was in charge of the boy, and would ensure that he suffered nothing fatal from his new roommates. Yondu realized once he looked at the boy’s age that there was no way he could give this boy up to the woman who had called herself ‘Diamond’. The bio-signature was almost identical, but he was supposed to be looked for a fully developed being, and one that sounded like they were in trouble for  _ something  _ they did. That was most definitely not this boy.

It was, however, too late to bring the boy back. Earth was strictly protected by several organizations - including Nova - to have as little alien contact as possible. He couldn’t just drop the kid back down. The kid would talk, word would get around to Nova, and then where would he be? Not to mention the Oraganization of Organisms would probably do a thorough check of the Eclector, something about Earth housing a highly endangered yet powerful species called mosquitos?

So the kid was staying. He had his own bunk now. T’ir would help show him the ropes of being a mechie for a bit until Yondu needed someone to scrub the floors or something. Everything would go smoothly.  _ Should  _ go smoothly. It takes a week to to figure out that’s not going to happen. 

“What did he break this time?” 


	2. Moss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moss grow's everywhere on the Eclector, truth be told no one really know's why they keep it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon of mine

On the Eclector, there is moss everywhere. Peter finds it odd that no one else finds it odd. In fact, when he’s on cleanup duty, there’s even instructions not to bug the moss, and he comes to the conclusion that it must be man eating or something, and therefore a danger to have on a spaceship. One time he brings it up to T’ir, who waves her hand dismissively and says that the moss doesn’t usually get in the way of working, and hands him a multi-wrench and shoves him towards the maintenance crew for the day. 

Mess has a tall, arching ceiling, and Sarei once mentioned that by the looks of it at one point in time it had been a hangar, but had been renovated to hold the crew for meals. This meant that the walls had all sorts of beams and ladders still attached to them, and several member of the crew enjoyed eating perched up high. Peter, for one, favored finding out exactly how high he could climb. 

It’s when he’s almost to the point that he thinks he could touch the ceiling when his feet scrapes on some wet moss, and he finds himself in a freefall. There are cries of alarm throughout the Mess, and he can’t help but to think that maybe this is it - he survived three years in space and now he’s going to die like this - not even because of some courageous escapade. He never touches the floor, and instead hears a grunt as a pair of arm halt his progress downward. 

“What the hell do you think you’re doing boy?! Gonna get yerself killed, and you still owe me for that ship you drove into a wall.” Peter’s too dazed to question how Yondu managed to catch him and doesn’t climb the Mess walls for a week.

oOo

When a group of Ravager’s decide that a coup’s a good idea and use Peter as bait, he doesn’t even realize it until one of them is pointing a gun right between his eyes. He can feel the blood drain from his face and his lip quiver, but he doesn’t cry. They make Petter call Yondu and ask him to come and help Peter with something, and it takes all of Peter’s will not to sob into the comm, but the gun is placed right against the back of his head and he can’t afford to screw up. 

One tear manages to free itself and falls onto the carpet of moss underneath them. He is going to get Yondu killed, and while he can’t exactly say he  _ likes  _ Yondu, the Captain could be worse, and who know’s what these men will do to him once he’s out of the way?

Yondu doesn’t actually enter through the door, like any civilized person. In fact, Yondu doesn’t even enter the room. All that Peter registers is a loud and shrill whistle before the Yaka arrow effortlessly punches through the door and each of the men’s throats. They all collapse around him, and he’s left wide eyes with bits of blood sprayed on him as Yondu enter the room, whistling the arrow back into his holster. 

“I think it’s time we got you fitted with a gun.” He says it dismissively, nudging a corpse with his foot.

“What, how?” Peter’s throat is dry and he can’t quite find the right words. 

“Trust me kid, I know everything that goes on in my ship.”

oOo

Yondu sits alone in his room, rubbing his crest. The light are off, but it’s giving enough of a glow that he can see around fine. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, like he had been taught many years ago. He can dimly remember his mother, pressing his hand onto ground, telling him to focus. His father, holding quiet session with him after they went out hunting, trying to help him understand.

He can almost remember what it felt like - being able to breath with an entire planet, a connection so perfect that he could hear what the grass on the other side of the mountain was whispering.

Yondu feels out, and each patch of moss has something they want to say to him. The control room is empty, save for Kraglin. The engine room appears to be in tact still. Someone’s rubbing against the moss leading up to his room. He sighs when the inevitable knock comes. 

“What is it boy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I discovered Centaurian's can sense when there's a stranger on their home planet I instantly wanted Yondu to have such a connection with his own ship somehow! Tell me what you think!


	3. Broken Heaters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Eclector was home to a rather motley crew, so varied were they that it was surprising rare to have more than a few members who were the same species. This, of course, made having a group that worked together well rather hard, and therefore the internal functions of the Eclector were strict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another headcanon of mine - also the thing about centaurians hibernating is totally made up by me for this chapter

The Eclector was home to a rather motley crew, so varied were they that it was surprising rare to have more than a few members who were the same species. This, of course, made having a group that worked together well rather hard, and therefore the internal functions of the Eclector were strict. There had to be day and night cycles in order to work with both the nocturnal members of the crew and the diurinal - night cycles weren’t pitch black, but low lighting did the trick just as well. The trickiest thing to compensate for were the different climates that the crew members came from. 

The best solution that Yondu and some members of the crew had some up with was to regulate the heating and air conditioning systems. During a day cycle the temperature would climb until halfway through it, and then would decrease, continue to decrease during the night cycle, until halfway through that, and then climb again. It was quite perfect for anyone, but it worked well enough for most of them that they could all bear it well, and if someone who got too hot could shed a layer or two and anyone who got too cold could wear five sweatshirts for all Yondu cared as long as they didn’t bitch about it. 

If there was one thing that the Eclector didn’t follow that many of the crew members had back home, was the seasons of a planet. Day and Night cycles always had the same temperature ranges. It wasn’t ‘summer’ or ‘winter’. No cold season, and with good reason. Now, while members’ of the Ravager’s were wild beasts, there are some things that one simply can’t shed, such as instincts. And, in the case of a surprisingly large number of the crew, they harbored such an instinct to hibernate or something similar to it in the cold months back on their home planet. One can’t be galavanting the galaxy and earning their keep if they’re busy sleeping for a quarter of a standard galactic year, so they did their best to avoid such an occurrence. 

Until one day, in the middle of deep space, the heater’s broke. 

Again, the crew aren’t just mindless beasts solely relying on what their instinct tell them, but it doesn’t take long for members of the crew to have their performance decrease. Wearing multiple layers, yawning, taking a little too long to process information. Most of them do a good enough job at soldiering through it - they were on a mission in deep space and it will take about a month to get to a decent station to make the correct repairs - but a few crew member’s go missing (presumably they found a small place to sleep until the heat came back on).

Peter counts his lucky stars that humans don’t do that, and while it still sucks to be cold it’s easy to accommodate with extra layers, and the red leather Ravager jacket helps a lot. After about the first week of being in the cold, it becomes obvious who hibernates, in fact, just below his bunk Rais’er has made a nest essentially with his blankets and has been conked out for three days straight. No one’s willing to say it, but Yondu’s crest, which usually is vibrant when he’s directing the crew, keeps flickering.

A week and a half in, Yondu is managing to stay awake mostly due to consuming enough caffeine that his heartbeat must be at least double what it should be. The nights on the Eclector has been rough on him before, especially when he was younger and hadn’t become accustomed to the cold, his body harshly warming up against the chill, but this was out of control. He stubbornly put on the coat usually saved for when they were on colder climate, took another swig of whatever it was that Doc had cooked up for him, and ignored the very convincing part of him that said he should just stay in his nest… for a couple of months.

After two weeks of having no heat, the worst thing happens. 

The lights go out.

The emergency low lights come on almost immediately, but after that crewmates start falling like flies. All around the ship, in the small nooks and crannies, you can find people dozing off, typically with several cloths wrapped around them. The ship still functions fine seeing as there is more than plenty of them that aren’t too badly affected by the cold and most of them  _ don’t _ hibernate. The lightning throws some of the diurnal member’s for a loop, but nothing they can’t take in stride. 

Three weeks after the heat cut out Peter comes across Yondu passed out on the bridge, Kraglin, Horuz, and a few other higher up crew members depositing large amounts of blankets and cushions on the floor. The next day the bridge is declared the official place for all crew members who need to call it quits for now, although there are a few pathways through the muddle of cushions - and slumbering bodies - in order to keep the bridge fully functional. Mess probably would’ve been a more ideal place for the massive sleeping pile but PEter was pretty sure Horuz and Kraglin just didn’t like the idea of trying move the Captain. 

Eventually they managed to get the heaters and lights fixed. As the heat comes back on members of the crew wake back up, in varying degrees of embarrassment. Yondu mutters about how he should have been woken up for the proceding weeks, and the heaters get checked every month after that. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me your thoughts! Agree? disagree? Have your own headcanons? Feel free to tell me! Thank you so much for reading!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to tell me your thoughts in the comments or your own headcanon's!


End file.
